The Slytherin Legacy
by jennetsnow
Summary: The true story of Salazar Slytherin's disagreement with the other three Founders about taking in muggle-born, and the real origin of the Chamber of Secrets. Featuring the four Founders.
1. Ill Tidings

Salazar Slytherin stood on the balcony, wind furiously whipping at his fur-lined black cloak. He was largely oblivious to the chill, partly because he had devised a tricky, albeit highly useful charm for staying warm, and partly because Salazar Slytherin preferred cold. His familiar, a python whose growth had stopped short of the usual mark, loathed it, and so the wizard was alone in the true and final sense. 

He tapped the stone railing before him with his wand, and was rewarded by a pale green image of a raven flying toward him... toward the school. He wondered if the news it undoubtedly carried would make any difference to the others. Somehow he doubted it. 

Godric was the worst of them. Bravery was all well and good, but there was no telling what the Muggles could do en masse. The Chinese had had gunpowder for ages, and assiduously the wizards had kept it from the Europeans, whose desire for destruction (preferably other people's) had led to improbably large crossbows and siege weaponry. Someday they would begin using it as a weapon (the divinations had been quite clear on that) and then what would the wizarding world do? 

"We can't, Salazar," Ravenclaw had said, in that irritatingly calm voice of hers. "There are too many muggle-born with the talent, the potential to succeed. Besides, there won't be enough purebloods to keep the school going." 

She had intellect, certainly, but lacked the vision to use it. That was his particular gift: Vision. They called it ambition when he wasn't around, and sneered at so crass a motive, all the while conspiring to allow more and more muggle-born into their haven. Oh yes, the raven might help with that. News from the continent. News that he already knew, from long hours of staring into the fire and steeping his mind in magic. 

"Excluding them wouldn't be fair," Hufflepuff had pointed out. For some reason Slytherin had begun to find her less insufferable than usual, and if she hadn't been so unspeakably jolly he might have found it in him to actually like her. But she too (jolly or not) was strangely blind to the consequences of the decision that was to be made. 

The four of them had built the school, work on the building was nearly complete (but for one wing) and all that was left was finding students. Students. 

"For heaven's sake, Sal," Gryffindor had started, and paused briefly when he noticed Slytherin's pointed look. The nickname was an old one, and like many old things, in Salazar Slytherin's opinion, it needed to die. "Er, Salazar. You can't let fear get in the way of business. Try to show a little backbone!" 

The meeting hadn't gone well. It was apparent that Slytherin was in the minority. All three of the others disagreed with him openly enough. 

On the balcony, he held out an arm, and the raven flapped onto it exhaustedly. There was talk of switching over to owls, who could fly at night, and were thus less likely to be seen by hostile muggles. Slytherin preferred ravens on the whole, but then again, if a muggle ever managed to bring down one of the birds... 

He unrolled the little bit of parchment attached to the bird's leg, and let the raven go. It climbed into the air, having to fight a bit against the wind, and flew in the direction of the new rookery, where a boy waited at all hours of the day and night to take care of the birds. Two of them had arrived bearing wounds, in the past few days; one had an actual arrowhead embedded in its wing. 

Yes, owls were something to think about. 


	2. Ill Will

The news was bad, of course. Eight wizards and witches had been slaughtered by muggles. Burning didn't work, of course, but chopping someone's head off was generally highly effective. Wizards did not keep their magic in their necks, and without a wand... it had been a very short fight. 

The news was bad, but perhaps it was good for his cause. He pocketed the note and stepped into the building, closing the door behind him, and headed for his rooms, deep in the dungeons. The others, no doubt, already knew about the bird, and would already be on their way. 

As he entered the room, the talking died suddenly, and he was met by three faces: one anxious, one unspeakably jolly, and one affably stupid. "What news from France?" said Gryffindor quickly, hoping to hide the fact that they had all been talking about something they obviously hadn't wanted him to hear. 

"It's as we expected," Slytherin answered flatly. "Eight from Paris killed. They were taken from their beds and executed. They never even had a chance to go for their wands." 

The others bowed their heads, and Hufflepuff whispered a quick prayer. "How did they know?" asked Ravenclaw in a hushed voice. 

"LeTerre betrayed them," said Slytherin, a hint of triumph in his voice. 

"Impossible!" Gryffindor snorted. "LeTerre was one of us, a wizard. He knows better than to believe all that devil-worshipping nonsense." 

Slytherin shook his head. "He might have had some small training as a wizard... nothing like what this school will accomplish, of course... but his loyalty was with the muggles, not with us. That's only natural, don't you think, given that his parents were muggles." 

At last, proof that he, Salazar Slytherin, was right. They had to be excluded from the school, these people of non-magical parentage. They had no loyalty, only superstition and fear. The few who even had the capacity to go on to become true wizards were not worth the risk of betrayal that muggle-borns represented. Already, five had died in Italy. Seven in the German-speaking nations. Twenty on the new continent, that the wizards had thought would become a haven for their kind. All because of wizards and witches who had not been born into the wizarding world. 

All because of... mudbloods. It was a dirty word, but the traitors deserved it, thought Salazar. 

He looked at the others expectantly, but Ravenclaw shook her head crisply. "This changes nothing, Salazar." 

For a moment the wizard just stared at her, dumbfounded. "What? Another eight dead, and you won't reconsider this... this foolish, impossible decision?" 

Gryffindor shook his head. "I'm sorry, Sal...azar. We knew the risks when we were starting this little venture. We knew about the Bohemians, and the ones in the colonies. We simply can't allow this to affect our mission: We must train the muggle-born just as we train our own." 

Ravenclaw nodded, and Hufflepuff said gently, "I'm sorry, Salazar, but we really can't afford to let muggle-born talent be wasted." 

"How many dead wizards do you need before you'll change your mind?" he spat. "How many heads divorced from their bodies? Three of these were children, for God's sake! Doesn't that matter to you? Doesn't it matter that they were betrayed and murdered by those they sought to teach? That those children were killed... no, slaughtered! By muggle-born?" 

They stared at him in silence, and didn't answer. He examined their faces, one by one, and realized that there was no help here, no support. Gryffindor shifted in his seat under Slytherin's icy stare, but said nothing. 

Slytherin took a deep breath, and exhaled very slowly, resuming his usual calm demeanour. "Very well. We shall have to double the security measures we have already taken. This place will have to be absolutely untraceable by muggles," he went on, discussing the spells that they would have to use in order to counter the muggle witch-hunting threat. 

The meeting was all over in an hour, and as Salazar Slytherin closed the door behind the last one he breathed a sigh of relief. In the last hour he had already concocted a plan, daring enough for Gryffindor and clever enough for Ravenclaw, if only either of them had had the foresight and drive to think of it first. 

Instinctively he had kept this idea a secret, knowing that none of the other three would approve of his plan. Leaving a terrible monster at the heart of the school which would someday (soon, God willing) be filled with children was too coldly calculating for them, and indeed it was something to consider. The security for the monster would have to be designed in order to prevent it from ever coming out unless it was needed. But what could he use? What creature would live long enough and be deadly enough against muggles, but not hurt true wizards? 

He let his eyes wander over his desk, trying to think, and spied his python sprawled across a paperweight made of carved stone. 

Stone. 

There it was! Slytherin seized a piece of paper, and began to draw, determining a place in the final wing that could be sectioned off, closed, he hoped desperately, for all time. 

But inside the chamber, waiting, waiting for traitors and mudblood spies, his creature would wait, with patience of a snake and the inhuman coldness of stone. 


End file.
